Black Box Recovered in Fatal Quebec Oil Train Explosion

The explosions occurred at about 1 a.m. local time after the train derailed, according to Sergeant Gregory Gomez del Prado, a spokesman with the Sûreté du Québec provincial police in Montreal. Source: Sûreté du Québec/Twitter.com via Bloomberg

July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Investigators say they’ve recovered
the “black box” that should help determine what happened
before a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. train carrying
crude oil derailed and exploded in a Quebec town, killing at
least five people.

The train with 72 carloads of crude oil crashed and burst
into flames early Saturday near the center of Lac-Megantic, in
the southeastern part of the province, forcing the evacuation of
2,000 people, police said. Forty people remain unaccounted for
and a criminal investigation is under way.

“We have examined the locomotive, we have verified all the
mechanisms on it, we recovered a copy of the famous black box,”
Ed Belkaloul, manager of eastern region rail operations for
Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, said at a televised press
briefing Sunday. Investigators also found a brake detection unit
that can also give information, he said.

The crash is the latest in a series of accidents involving
oil on rails as Canadian producers turn to shipping crude by
train, with construction of pipelines such as the Keystone XL
conduit to the Gulf Coast delayed by environmental and
regulatory concerns. TransCanada Corp. applied to build Keystone
XL five years ago and the Obama administration initially
rejected the project in January last year.

While Montreal, Maine & Atlantic has not completed its own
investigation, the company said in a statement that the train,
which was parked at a station outside the town, was shut down
after the engineer left. This “may have resulted in the release
of air brakes on the locomotive that was holding the train in
place,” the company, a short-line carrier owned by closely held
Rail World Inc. of Chicago, said.

Black Box

The black box, officially known as a locomotive event
recorder, captures information including throttle position,
speed, time, and brake pressure, said Donald Ross, who is
leading the TSB’s investigation. Asked about the railway’s
statement, Ross said “the manner in which the train was secured
and both air brakes and hand brakes, we will be looking very
strongly at that.”

Firefighters were finally able to extinguish the flames
Sunday, fire chief Denis Lauzon said. More than 100 firefighters
battled the blaze, he said earlier.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper described the
destruction in Lac-Megantic as “like a war zone” after touring
the site Sunday afternoon. The town of about 6,000 lies about
250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Montreal, and 10 miles from
the U.S. border with Maine.

Buildings Incinerated

“This is a very big disaster in human terms,” Harper said
at a press conference. “This is an enormous area, 30 buildings
completely destroyed and for all intents and purposes
incinerated. There isn’t a family here that hasn’t been affected
by this.”

Harper said it was too early to apply blame or to discuss
financial assistance from the federal government. There are laws
that govern how funding is distributed in disasters such as
this, and Harper said he’ll work with Industry Minister
Christian Paradis to determine next steps.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic said it has a dozen
representatives in Lac-Megantic, and is cooperating with
government authorities.

“A big fire like this with enormous damage and many dead,
Quebec police must investigate,” Lt. Michel Brunet, a spokesman
with the Surete du Quebec provincial police, said at a news
conference in Lac-Megantic Sunday. “That’s why it’s become a
crime scene. Investigators will continue to work and meet with
families.”

Coroner’s Office

“You’ve seen the fire, you can deduct the state the bodies
are in,” Brunet said. Genevieve Guilbault, a spokeswoman with
the coroner’s office, said the team has deployed a multiple-victim unit that has not been used in at least five years.

Thomas Mulcair, leader of Canada’s main opposition New
Democratic Party, criticized the Conservative government’s
handling of an increase in crude-by-rail shipments.

“We are seeing more and more petroleum products being
transported by rail, and there are attendant dangers involved in
that,” Mulcair said on CTV television. “We are watching a
magnificent little village being burned to the ground by toxic
products that were being transported through it.”

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train had five locomotive
units when it derailed at about 1:15 a.m. local time, the
company said in a statement Saturday.

Local Concerns

“We have always been aware of the issue of trains passing
through our city,” Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said. “But we’re
not the only city where trains go through downtown. Do we say we
didn’t have concerns? That’s a lie. What we have demanded is the
railway company to observe the rules of maintenance.”

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic was carrying crude to Irving Oil
Corp.’s 298,800-barrel-a-day Saint John refinery in New
Brunswick, according to a statement on Irving’s website. Joseph
McGonigle, vice president of sales and marketing at the train
company, did not immediately return an e-mail or phone call.

A Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. train car carrying
petroleum diluent derailed on a buckling bridge over the Bow
River that runs through downtown Calgary during flooding last
month. A Canadian Pacific train derailed March 27 in Minnesota
and another near Jansen in Saskatchewan in May, both spilling
crude oil.

Ed Greenberg, a Canadian Pacific spokesman, declined to
comment on shipping oil by rail. Edward Burkhardt, chairman of
Rail World Inc., didn’t immediately return telephone messages
left at his office Sunday.

Drinking Water

Roy-Laroche said crews were able to repair a “major leak”
in a water main to maintain access to drinking water for
residents. Even so, the town ordered residents to boil drinking
water for at least 5 minutes as a precaution.

The locomotive engineer was not on the train when it
derailed, Montreal Maine & Atlantic, said in a statement. The
train was stopped and tied down by the engineer for a crew
change shortly before midnight Friday night at a station almost
seven miles west of Lac-Megantic, the company said. The engineer
went to a hotel and the train moved downhill to where it
derailed.

The explosions and fires were concentrated in an area about
1 square kilometer (0.39 square mile), and many buildings have
been affected, said Sergeant Gregory Gomez del Prado, a
spokesman with the Quebec police in Montreal. Most evacuees have
been sent to stay with relatives, he said. Some people were sent
to a nearby school, where the Red Cross has set up a shelter,
officials said.

Montreal Maine & Atlantic is working with police and fire
services to investigate the accident, Gomez del Prado said. The
company owns 510 route miles of track in Maine, Vermont and
Quebec and employs about 170 people, according to its website.
It operates 15 trains daily with a fleet of 26 locomotives.